The History of Playing Cards; With Anecdotes of Their Use in Conjuring, Fortune-Telling, and Card-Sharping (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865. Excerpt: ... and forbids their sale by any one else, under a penalty of 3,000 livres, and confiscation of the articles. The first of the series was the Jeu de Fables, containing, as the preface tells us, all the fabulous deities, and all the fables, or at least such as relate to metamorphoses. There are fifty-two in the pack, which is divided into the usual suits, the cards answering to the king, queen, and knave of each being as follows: hearts--Jupiter, Juno, and Mars; clubs--Neptune, Pallas, and Mercury; spades--Pluto, Diana, and Bacchus; and diamonds--Saturn, Venus, and Apollo. Each card contains a picture, the value being denoted by a numeral, and the mark of the suit; thus--Niobe, with a X and a spade, is the ten of spades; and the ten of hearts is Actseon. The Nine Muses, with a X and a club, is the nine of clubs; and Arion, marked with an I and a club is the ace. (Plate XXXV.) Desmarets, encouraged by the protection he received, which also relieved him of the usual tax on cards, and by the reception which attended these really artistic designs, next produced a Jeu de I'histoire de France, which possessed some very original features. There are neither marks of suits, nor the ordinary divisions. The list of the kings is proof enough of its singularity. These are arranged in six divisions: --good kings, simple-minded kings, cruel kings, faithless kings, luckless kings, and kings neither good nor bad. Under this last category are included Charles the Bald, Francis II., and Louis the Stammerer. In all, there are sixty-five prints, after the manner of Plate XXXVI. The last represents Louis XIV. as an infant, in a carriage drawn by his mother, with this note appended;--"Louis XIV., a prince long looked for, and who, granted by the Almighty to the prayers of a good and...